A TORTURE victim suffered the kind of extensive injuries usually only found in people involved in car crashes or falls from great heights, a jury was told yesterday.

Home Office pathologist, Dr Nigel Cooper, said Andrew Gardner’s 21 rib fractures would have severely compromised his ability to move and breathe before he died.

Dr Cooper told a murder trial jury that the injuries – probably caused in three separate attacks – are likely to have been caused by “repeated and forceful” blows.

Mr Gardner, 35, is said to have been beaten, burned, whipped and slashed in the weeks before he died at the County Durham home he shared with his alleged killers.

His girlfriend, Clare Nicholls, 28, her brother, Simon Nicholls, 24, and former lover, Steven Martin, 44, deny murder and are facing a trial at Teesside Crown Court.

Dr Cooper told the jury yesterday that he believed Mr Gardner had suffered an agonising death, unable to move from the house in Chilton, possibly for days.

“Death was not sudden and followed a period of hours or days after Mr Gardner had been lying incapacitated or unconscious,” the pathologist told the court.

The jury also heard a recording of the 999 call made by Mr Nicholls on the night Mr Gardner was found dead at the house in Arthur Street on March 13 last year.

The caller said Mr Gardner had returned from a walk claiming to have been assaulted by a gang, stripped off, laid down on the floor and fell into unconsciousness.

All of the defendants stuck to the story when they were initially interviewed by detectives, but Mr Nicholls later confessed to concocting it to hide the truth.

Paramedic Alan Flinders told the jury he quickly had doubts about the claims because of the state of the body, and Dr Cooper dismissed the notion as “absolute nonsense”.

The pathologist said: “I find it very difficult to accept that he could have been alive halfan- hour before the paramedics got there. It is very likely he had been dead for some hours.

“Death was not sudden and followed a period of hours or days after Mr Gardner had been lying severely incapacitated, at best, in severe pain and unable to move, at worst, unconscious.

“The severity of the rib fractures are such as normally only encountered at the severe end of the spectrum of injuries in car crashes and falls from considerable heights,” he added.

“Given the distribution of the fractures present, the only reasonable explanation is that someone has jumped on him repeatedly and forcefully either feet-first or kneesfirst.”

The case continues.

Engineers tell of ‘man who needed hospital treatment’

ENGINEERS who visited the house to fit a satellite system 11 days before Andrew Gardner’s death said he was “black and blue all over” and looked like he should have been in hospital.

Brothers Graeme and David Stephenson said they considered packing up their tools and walking out on the job after Miss Nicholls launched into aggressive rants.

It was said she first objected to being asked by Graeme Stephenson to put out her cigarette while they worked close to her, saying: “It’s my house, I can smoke in here if I want to.”

Miss Nicholls is then said to have turned her anger on Mr Gardner because he had not passed on the no-smoking request, having himself been told earlier by one of the men.

“She was aggressively shouting at the male,” said Graeme. “He was absolutely terrified of her. He was saying ‘I know, I know’ with a terrified, quiet voice.”

David said of the visit on March 2: “He looked like he should have been in hospital, rather than having Sky fitted to his house. He was bruised all over his face, like he had been beaten up.”